Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet episode 10 – Pinion waves his dick over the radio

I’m not very good at coming up with puns. Inushinde is the real king of that. Sometimes I can come up with the odd movie or song title reference, but those are either cliche or too obscure to be funny. That’s why for years I never bothered with the post subtitles. But bringing on those two berks meant I had to start including post subtitles too. So instead I just go for the incredibly blunt titles because that is all I can think of.

But yes, this episode was half Pinion waving his dick over the radio and going “yoohoo aren’t you all jealous of what this suction pump I bought from an ad on jlist did for me wooh” and doing the windmill, and half Ledo falling around the ship as though Chamber has been spiking his nutrient supplements.

I can’t say I was feeling Ledo’s emotional breakdown the same way I felt Akane’s breakdown in Psycho Pass. I think it’s because I’m impatient and would just like Ledo to get on with his life. When Akane’s life force was shattered, you saw her be broken, but by the next time we saw her she was girding her loins and getting back into action. She wasn’t suffering from sea legs and pulling orz poses. I was siding with Chamber before he even began his speech.

I did really enjoy that spiel from Chamber about the fundamental differences between them and the space snails (I could just remember how to spell Hideoooze, or I could just keep calling them space snails, which is way easier). Often with sci-fi alien races, they’re basically just the equilivant of a nation of humans or a certain political leaning of humans. These aliens are the Space Imperialists, while those are the Space Capitalists. The space snails are truly alien in every way from humans, ironic considering their beginnings. It’s interesting to consider what happens we lose our desire to augment our lives to compensate for our bodies inabilities. My first thought with that was wouldn’t people still want art? Even if everything we physically want is provided, mental stimulus is subjective. However if you consider for a second what art is, it’s a person’s vision transcribed via a medium. If all communication is instant and perfect, there is theoretically no need for art.

As for Gargantia as a whole, I’m not sure if you guys are feeling the same way, but I’m just not as jazzed about it as I was at the start. The terrible middle portion of the show really soured my opinion on the themes it was building up, and these latest episodes haven’t been able to get me hyped up again. The characters are just really uninteresting. If they were supposed to be building up Pinion as being some kind of antagonist, then they’ve done a crap job because I feel only mild dislike towards him and his dick-waving. The female characters are complete jokes, in particular Amy who is just that goddamn genki girl archetype. I’m not invested in events anymore, and all that’s really keeping my attention is the sci-fi folklore stuff that’s basically just Chamber reading the Mass Effect codex out loud. And on some level I’m kinda cool with that, because I love me some high sci-fi, but an engaging story it does not make.

44 Comments

You gotta cut Ledo some slack, as I predicted, the Alliance has been lying to Ledo and his fellow white-haired soldier-kids. Akane had her life overturned, but for the most part she’s a human being living a life not completely unlike yours or mine. Ledo lived a life of 17 years of continuous military service, every day fed government-approved propaganda about how the snails are the natural enemy of humanity, and having a whole lot of apparent evidence that that is the case (i.e. fighting them all the live long day, every day).

He’s had no reason or opportunity to imagine any other life. Landing on Earth opened the door for a new perspective, but it was more a sideline, something that didn’t necessarily threaten the core of his outlook. Now that core has been shattered, and his whole life is sort of a lie. I’d think he’d be warranted a little moping, don’t you?

I think I stopped caring around Episode 7, which was the episode where Ledo first killed those squids. After that, the plot, characters, and themes became too black and white for me to enjoy and the show hasn’t done a good job of reining me back in. I can’t even remember what caused Pinion’s shift in attitude to a more aggressive villain-like state either. It’s a shame too because I really loved the start of this thing.

Three mecha shows this season and not a one I like. What are the chances of that happening?

Greed mostly, I think. I mean, he was always shown to be a bit of an ass, as the first thing that he suggested when they discovered Ledo was to toss him into the sea and take his robot.
Guess everyone else just skimmed over that bit of dialogue.

I thought Chamber’s speech made a great slogan. You know like : “Kill an Hideauze, save a MC”.
I mean, no one would have wanted to live in a world without Chamber, right ?
The fact that he is the most engaging character of the show for many isn’t really a great new, though…

Pinion’s point is that he isn’t really evil. He acts like… well, a dick, but he have some reasons to act this ways (Revenge, mostly…). I think we’re supposed to understand his motives, but condemn his actions…
Granted, the show doesn’t do a really great at it…

I don’t think that he’s petty so much as he’s motivated by a driving undercurrent of greed and past trauma. His revelation as an antagonist is probably disappointing because he isn’t actually being revealed as one, at least not in full; we’re just making that assumption on our part based on our prior experience with similar stories. He isn’t being openly hostile to anyone [who doesn’t attack him first] yet, but we as the viewers know that this newly rediscovered technology in the hands of someone like himself can’t lead to anything good.

I wonder if somebody made a favorite character poll or something for us English speakers. All the polls I have seen are from Japanese, and yeah, nobody likes character from Gargantia. It’s really the major weakness of this anime. I was honestly mad with Ledo’s behavior. I want to yell “Get on with life already!!” I wish Chamber can spank him rather than making some grand speech. Oh. But I like his speech very much. These things are just squids and snails and flowers, dammit. Didn’t he pulverize a whole lot of Homo Sapiens without batting an eye back then?

The humans got in the way of him murdering space snails, so they had to be eliminated. It’s the Light Yagami way of thinking. If they’re in your way, then they’re in the way of justice. If Light figured out all the people he was killing were actually good guys after all, he’d maybe have a similar reaction to Ledo

I kind of agree with everyone here. The only thing left now for me is their world and what shenanigans Urobuchi’s going to pull next. Out of 3 of his works I’ve had the time to consume, only Psycho Pass seems to satisfy greatly. Saya is kind of eh, considering all the notoriety that surrounds it still, and the ending is fully telegraphed when you found that journal or some shit. Also it’s obvious what Saya is from the start. Have yet to try any of his other works though. Might have to do that once I’m in jobhunting mode in the summer. >_>

I’ll also add that Psycho Pass had the greatest single character development, a woman even, I’ve seen in a long time. The setting’s all good, and a bit predictable who (one of) the villain is, considering it’s cyberpunk. The ending should’ve been obvious unless they wanted to pull one out of their ass. And bonus points are the good soundtrack. And hyperoats.

In comparison to Madoka… it’s the only magical girl anime I like recently. Episode 3 is still fun. I guess Homura’s development is fine, but I liked Akane’s more. On a whole it’s still great though, but I’m more partial to sci-fi. Wish there’s more that doesn’t include mecha, as awesome that usually are.

Ha! Psycho Pass great? It had some of the same problems you claimed to have plagued Fate/Zero, yet you didn’t seem to notice them in your weekly reviews.

Sure, Psycho Pass isn’t bad, it is competently produced and a good effort, but I wouldn’t say it’s anything more than decent. I’d say Madoka > Fate/Zero > Pyscho Pass, with Gargantia on the side for now.

I don’t see how she doesn’t have a good character growth, in comparison to that season’s shows, and a few before, though. Mind you I’m not one that watches anything and everything, but of the ones that I watched, she’s the best. Started out timid and not confident with herself, was put into a situation where it changes her world, “mope” a bit before gathering enough wit to start recover, another bit of revelation then became a somewhat seasoned, slightly pragmatic person in the end.

Nothing really jumps at me currently when I think of someone with that kind of development. JoJo is JoJo. GnP is the same friendship thing. R;N is kind of the same thing. Ish. SSY hardly any, and so is Mouretsu Pirates. Homura is, dare I say, is kind of whiny.

No. No. I can’t think of any more.

Again, this is in comparison to recent anime. I’ve said so in my earlier post, and I’ll repeat it again here.

Yes I did. In fact most of them are. Some regret how they became magical girls, one regrets becoming a magical girl since she’s now a zombie (just like that MC from Valvrave), another whines a lot of saving he friend and can’t let go of the past, and one just whines a lot.

It’s still great, and the whine was served with the utmost of quality. I’m being cynical.

Well it depends on what criteria you’re basing this on: if you’re talking about female characters from just this last year, then yes, Akane is definitely up there. Akane is a great character, I won’t deny that; she’s one of the things that makes that show stand out in my mind. But to say she’s the single greatest is a bit much, don’t ya think? I mean, a lot more characters come to mind, personally: Kasuga from Aku no Hana, Chihaya from Chihayafuru, Houtarou from Hyouka, Kaoru from from Kids on the Slope, Waver from Fate/Zero, etc. To say that Saki from SSY has “hardly any” character development is preposterous. Just because it’s not as in-your-face as it is in Psycho Pass doesn’t mean it’s not there, especially in something character driven like SSY.

Fair points. I’m still watching Aku no Hana (not gonna read it for some illogical reason. Don’t ask), I dropped Kids on the Slope for some reason, haven’t watched Chihayafuru, have a strong bias against KyoAni (I’ve tried, but I guess trying to get back to liking them using Tamako Market isn’t that great of an idea?), and Fate/Zero is on my to watch list. Actually, now that I think about it, indeed Saki did have a slow, good development, so it escaped me. Almost the same way too? My memory is failing me. And yes, maybe that phrase is a bit much. I blame scamp for moefying her too much.

Once I become a NEET for a while, I’ll have all the time I need to watch all of those. >_>

Yeah I haven’t read it either, but even from ten episodes Kasuga has had tremendous development. I would probably avoid Chuunibyou and Tamako (both of which I didn’t like too much despite me being a gushing KyoAni fanboy) and go for Hyouka, which is genuinely great. Also Fate/Zero is definitely worth watching, especially if you’re a fan of the Butcher Gen.

Pretty much, yeah. Though I seem to be the only one who didn’t find the infodump to be particularly boring, as I was watching Fate/Zero alongside playing the Fate/Stay Night VN, and I’ll let you guess which had the eye-gouging pace and oddly descriptive food scenes.

I know it’s not fun to find out you’ve been lied to all your life, but is anyone else finding Ledo’s sadness about the space snails being human a little contradictory with how little issue he had killing all those pirates back in episode 2?

Not really.
He experienced character development between 2 and 10 and after the reveal he started questioning his people.
And unlike the pirates, the whalesquids were not evil.
To make it worse, he killed many innocent infants.

Rushed my ass. This show hasn’t got enough ideas to fill out one cour as it is, they wasted an entire episode on a fanservicey beach episode for chrissakes. Gargantia is dragging its feet if anything.

A competent director could get across everything this show ultimately has to say in half a cour. Besides, none of the characters or conflicts are interesting enough to warrant more time, they’ve just been all round mishandled and having more time to flesh out their uninteresting personalities would just make the whole thing even more tedious.

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